Saturday, September 13, 2008

Vote suppression again

It's so reliable you can set your calendar by it. Every election year, and especially every presidential election, the Republican Party does its best to pervert the republican form of government required by our Constitution to ensure that the people do not have the chance to vote to protect their own interests. In addition, we know that the Republican dominance of the last forty years has been built on a foundation of racism and racial discrimination, primarily in the South, but really wherever they can gain control of the mechanisms of voting. See, for instance, the examples of Florida's fraudulent voter list purge in 2000 and Ohio's subversion of the voting system in 2004. Nevertheless, this week we have two particularly odious examples.

In Wisconsin, the attorney general, who also happens to be McCain's state campaign chair, has filed a suit designed to slow down voting lines and drive voters away from the polls.

I know, I know. You thought that people are supposed to vote, it's an aspect of good citizenship, and everyone's civic duty. The problem is, when "certain people" vote it's just a bit inconvenient for the Republicans. Keep them away from the polls, and problem solved!

Bad as that is, though, what they're doing in Michigan, where I used to live, is even more loathsome. Really, beneath contempt: they're making sure that people who have lost their homes through foreclosure will also lose the right to vote.

3 Comments:

Just saw the movie "Uncounted" tonight, and it's really scary...on how elections can be tinkered with and the wrong persons win, although the majority of the voters didn't want him or her. Check out my blog at peoplepowergranny.blogspot.com and read about the roadblocks put before some voters at the polls and along the way. Then vote in my poll about troubles with voting.